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Investment-centred transitioning from agrarian-tourism

economy to manufacturing in Cross River State, South-
Eastern/South-South, Nigeria

Article · April 2014

DOI: 10.2298/IJG114010931.

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J. Geogr. Inst. Cvijic. 64(1) (93-109)

Original scientific paper UDC: 911.3:631(669)

DOI: 10.2298/IJGI1401093I

INVESTMENT-CENTRED TRANSITIONING FROM AGRARIAN-

TOURISM ECONOMY TO MANUFACTURING IN CROSS RIVER
STATE, SOUTH-EASTERN/SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA: A
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE AND BACKGROUND

Richard Ingwe *1, Julius A. Ada **, Ikwun Angiating ***

* IPPA, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria; CRADLE, Calabar, Nigeria
** Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria
*** Faculty of Management Sciences, Cross River University of Technology, Ogoja Campus,
Cross River State, Nigeria

Received 18 June 2014; reviewed 19 July 2014; accepted 09 April 2014

Abstract: Embattled by ministries, departments and agencies of Nigeria’s federal government,

that worked together with neighbouring (Akwa Ibom) State government to remove Cross River
State from the country’s oil-producing states entitled to receipt of larger statutory allocations
compared to their counterparts, Cross River State Government’s policy of promoting regional
development through attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) since 2009 is receiving praises.
This article presents contexts, core-periphery theoretical perspectives, and comments elucidating
intricacies of FDI-centred sub-national regional development strategizing in the context of
phenomenal globalization of neoliberal capitalism. It is argued that the core-periphery theory’s
current status promises ‘depressed’ sub-national regions the development strategies they require
for transiting from backwardness to growth. This assertion derives from the theory’s
encouragement of Nigeria’s ‘depressed’ sub-national regions to aspire towards applying
innovative policies/instruments capable of reversing undesirable circumstances that sometimes
surpass standards previously/currently attained by counterparts placed higher on the development
ladder.

Key words: Foreign direct investments, development strategizing, core-periphery theory/model,

Cross River State, Nigeria, manufacturing, Calabar FTZ (city), low per capita income

Introduction

Nigeria’s popular literature has recently been replete with reports of spurts in
investment in manufacturing in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) and environs of the
city, Calabar, located in the geographical south-eastern part of the country, and
classified under the South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria. This city region
serves as the incumbent capital of Cross River State. Formerly, it served as
capitals of Nigeria’s Southern Protectorate that was later joined with the

1
Correspondence to: ingwe.richard@gmail.com
 J. Geogr. Inst. Cvijic. 64(1) (93-109)

Northern Nigeria Protectorate to fabricate Nigeria in 1914. Calabar also served

as political capital of Eastern Nigeria in the 1950s, when Nigeria was
administered under four, and later five geo-political zones. The academic
literature has also indicted Nigeria’s as being notorious for receiving FDI that
focus on non-manufacturing economic activities that tend to be of low outcomes
or less beneficial to developing countries that gets such (te Velde, 2006). Apart
from the West’s (United States of America conglomerate, General Electric’s
recent commitment towards investing one billion US Dollars within the next five
years on manufacturing in the south-eastern Calabar city region; investors from
the East (led by China) is also committing towards industrial manufacturing
spurt in the sub-national urban region (Ventures Africa, 2013a; several Nigerian
Dailies, 2013). Following the ground-breaking ceremony of General Electric’s
programme in Calabar, a flurry of other investments have been declared by
several firms which are aiming to gain from the advantages believed to be
derivable from the expenditure, within the next five years, of US$1 billion -
equivalent to about NG=N= 158 billion (i.e. the country’s currency, Naira) in the
sub-national region. The investment will be dedicated to Multi-Model
manufacturing and industrial services at the Calabar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ).

Cross River State Government functionaries are expressing excitement over the
advantages such as the supply contracts and jobs that would be spurned out of
this foreign investment which adds to the usual State Government annual
budgets, which was estimated at about NG=N= 151.3 billion –covering both
recurrent and capital expenditure- for fiscal 2013 for the sub-national region
(Cross River State Government, 2013). Ample scope is provided for this study
by several reasons two of which deserve immediate mention here. First, previous
reports in the academic and popular literature about Calabar region and its
environs as an economically backward region compared to other growing
regions in Nigeria (Omuta and Onokerhoraye, 1986). While the urban
characteristics of this ‘economic backwardness” translated into Calabar’s
description as a sleepy, small and dull town full of low-income-earning
government bureaucrats whose streets occasionally exhibited poor cars, mostly
the old-fashioned “beetle-design Volkswagen type” compared to most residents
of the neighbouring south-eastern city (Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where
petroleum oil and natural gas business has been vigorous since the late 1950s)
who drive expensive posh cars (Nigeria’s development-speak and conversations,
1980s-1990s).

Moreover, recent exclusion of Cross River State, the sub-national region

enveloping Calabar urban region, from the list of fossil fuel (oil and natural gas)
producing regions of Nigeria set in motion sub-national regional public policies

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 Ingwe, R. et al. - Investment-centred transitioning from agrarian-tourism economy…

aimed at stimulating growth through private sector -contrasted to remaining in

the petro-capitalistic culture of over-relying on earnings from export of crude-oil
extracted from the Niger Delta region where Cross River State belongs (Ingwe,
2013a). Part of the region’s economic backwardness included a low contribution
to the Gross Regional Product (GRP) to the national revenue compared to the
higher contribution by economically stronger provinces/states (Olaore, 1980,
1977). The recent and ongoing inflow of FDI into manufacturing in the Calabar
urban region and environs promises to raise the gross regional product and
socio-economic profile of the sub-national region. In order to sustain the inflow
of FDI and apply same effectively for properly contributing towards effective
economic geographic and spatial development of the sub-national regional
development in the region, knowledge of the nature and geography –in terms of
the origin of foreign direct investment (FDI) coming into the Calabar FTZ and
environs is required.

Problematising the recent investment spurt in the Calabar, FTZ

Not much is known about the theoretical underpinnings of economic geography

that underlie the shift from agrarian economy to the investment-spurred
manufacturing type in Cross River State. On what theoretical grounds could we,
as geographers view, debate and/or assess the ongoing transition and
development strategizing that has been ongoing in the sub-national region?

Objectives and organization: Nigeria’s FDI attraction strategy has been indicted
in the literature, as being dominated by FDI focusing on non-manufacturing
economic activities that tend to be of low outcomes or less beneficial for the
country, (te Velde, 2006). As a foundation for progressing towards studying and
understanding the way investment in Cross River State has increased recently
and differs from investment level in the region hitherto as well as those of other
parts of Nigeria, the general objective of this article is to contribute towards
understanding the recent/ongoing economic development dynamics in the sub-
national region. Therefore, we organize and present relevant and specific
materials for achieving specific objectives of this study, in sections, as follows.
We present some contextual social, economic, and environmental background
conditions of parts of the sub-national namely: Calabar urban region and its
environs. Then, we present essential features of the core-periphery model, one of
the classical regional development theories (body of ideas) applied by human
geographers and their cousins in the social sciences considered suitable for
understanding the ongoing spurt in investment in manufacturing in the sub-
national region.

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 J. Geogr. Inst. Cvijic. 64(1) (93-109)

Socio-economic context for understanding and assessing foreign direct

investment in Nigeria and Calabar, Cross River State

Mass poverty, high unemployment, inequality and corruption

With a population recently projected at 161 million (BussinessDay, 2011a: 21),

Nigeria’s opportunities, namely a huge market for products and services
produced and offered by firms is attractive to investors in manufacturing. About
half a century-old development challenge of unemployment of a large
population of the youthful population reared its ugly face in the late 1960s
(Callaway, 1966) worsened to the point of having –about 40 million of
unemployed youth, a large proportion of them (80 per cent) described by
officials as “unemployable” in the mid-2000s (Nigerian Tribune, 2009; February
25: 20) presents inexpensive labour for foreign investors. A brief examination of
Nigeria’s history of being Africa’s most populous country since the mid 2000s
clarifies this country’s recent preferred destination for foreign investment on the
continent. Nigeria’s population of over 140 million in 2006 constituted nearly 20
percent of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’s 2005 total population (732.5 million)
(Nigeria, 2007, 2007b, WRI, UNDP, UNEP, World Bank, 2005: 177). The huge
population is projected to rise further to over 206.7 million (UNDP et al, 2005:
177). This indicates to investors the stability of the huge market and the
necessity of planning towards improving their investment by taking advantage of
the existing opportunities in the country. In terms of the welfare of Nigerian
citizens, Nigeria’s economic history is disappointing. In the 2000s, Nigerian
government functionaries (e.g. Chairman of the National Planning Commission,
Dr. Chukuma Charles Soludo; Federal Ministers of Labour, and Productivity and
Education, among others) publicly informed that about 40 million youth were
unemployed. More scandalously, they revealed that about 70% to 80% of them
were unemployable due to the poor education the received from the country’s
tertiary educational institutions (Nigerian Tribune, 2009: 20).

The huge quantities of Nigeria’s large deposits of proven fossil fuel, including
4635 million metric tones of oil equivalent (mtoe) of oil and 4497 mtoe of
natural gas (WRI et al, 2005: 201), among other energy resources (Adekeye,
2008: 18-23), have been extracted for export to earn an average of US$20 billion
annually since the 1970s (Adams, 1991) have not impacted positively on
Nigeria’s masses. Unfortunately, a disproportionately large part of these
earnings have been stolen by the country’s elite constituting less than one
percent of the population. Nigeria’s US$1 billion was reportedly stolen in 1978
by military dictators who reigned between 1976 and 1979. More recently,
another set of dictators –led by Sani Abacha- who reigned between 1993 and

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1997 reportedly stole between US$ /5 billion and US$ 50 billion was (Lombardi
1986; Adams, 1991, Omojola, 2007: 20-35, Ribadu, 2009). These high level of
corruption and criminal acts have had consequences on the country’s social
sectors (health, education, among others) which were subjected to gross under-
funding and mass poverty (Babalola, 2007; Makanjuola, 2002; Fashina, 2002).
Besides, mediocrity, ineptitude, and destructive political contests for resources
for sharing have been pervasive in public policy (BussinessDay, 2011b) at
federal, 36 states and 774 Local Government Areas.

Figure 1: Nigeria’s 36 states and Federal Capital Territory projected from Africa
Sources: (1) http://www.worldofcultures.org/1024/africa/AfricaMaps/nigeria.gif; (2)
http://www.world-gazatteer.com.

Consequently, about 70.2 per cent and 90.8 per cent of the nation’s population
lived on less than US$1 per day and US$2 per day respectively in 1997 and
thereabout (WRI et al, 2005, Ingwe, 2009). Nigeria’s ranking on the socio-
economic scales has been poor: Its human development index (where the most
developed country was represented as “1”) was only 0.47. The nation’s human
poverty index (100 = highest rate of poverty) was only 35.1 in 2002. Although
the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) was US$32,953 million in 2002 and
was the second largest in SSA, her GDP per capita PPP in 2002 was only
US$919 (12th largest in SSA) (WRI et al, 2005: 189-193). Recent business

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delegation from China expressed satisfaction with the opportunities in the

Calabar region and environs. We briefly examine some of these.

Relating geographic, socio-economic –including tourism settings of the

Calabar region to increasing manufacturing investment

Drawing from insight to the region as recently provided (Ukwayi, Ingwe, and
Ojong, 2012), the region has an area of 472,704 square kilometers comprising
two Local Government Areas (Calabar Municipality, 194,274 square kilometers,
and Calabar South, 278,430 square kilometers. Increasing socio-economic
activities is pushing the statutory boundaries of Calabar region beyond the
foregoing confines. Reports of Nigeria’s 2006 census put the city region’s
population at 371,022 (i.e. Calabar Municipality; 179,392 and Calabar South;
191, 630 (Nigeria 2007). The city-region has a reputable political and economic
history in Nigeria. Its sea route and natural seaport potentials facilitated travel,
arrival and establishment of a European slave trade depot that contributed large
population of slaves from this part of the world to the global Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade. These facilities encouraged trade in other commodities (oil palm
etc., between the Europeans and the Calabar (Efik) people. The region served as
the administrative capitals for the following political entities: Southern Nigeria
Protectorate, Nigeria as an amalgamation of Southern and Northern
Protectorates before the capital was moved to Lagos. Thereafter, it became the
capital of South Eastern State and currently Cross River State.

Figure 2: Nigeria showing study area: Cross River State –one of Nigeria’s 36 states where the
southern coastal Calabar city is capital, is shaded
Source: Ingwe et al, 2009.

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Recent tourism infrastructural development in Calabar city

For the past one decade and half, Calabar urban region has been the focus of the
establishment of strategic infrastructural assets covering many sectors, from
healthcare, education, agriculture, electricity, water, urban to rural
transportation. The development philosophy of these infrastructural programmes
is that their (re)generation in rural and urban areas engenders complementarity in
sub-national regional economies. The latter involves rural areas’ contributing
agricultural produce (food stuff, and raw materials for industrial manufacturing
thereby providing a foundation for the emerging urban industrial region. Calabar
urban infrastructural development started in the early 2000s with funding from
the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, a Nigerian federal
parastatal, established by the federal government to fund development
programmes in the oil-rich Niger Delta. This ensured that most streets in the
urban centre that had gone into disrepair for decades since the 1980s were
reconstructed and renovated. More recently, from the late 2000s when Governor
Liyel Imoke’s administration was inaugurated on 29th May, 2007, additional
works began. Calabar benefited from most of the asphalting of a Cross River
State-wide closely knit road network of over 800 kilometres. The Imoke
administration is being perceived as having left an indelible foot-print on the
sands of time due to the way he pioneered rural development in Nigeria’s post-
independent era. Other major infrastructure programmes in Calabar and environs
include the Airport Bye-pass, the Tinapa Knowledge City, smartgovt and
Electronic Citizens Identification Scheme, Calabar International Convention
Centre and Hotel (CICC), International Gulf Course, Port-side industrial park,
Land Registration Reform and a host of housing estates. These infrastructural
development programmes provide the objects that have appealed to and attracted
investment inflow into Calabar urban region in particular and elsewhere in Cross
River State, in general (Daily Independent, 2013).

Previous infrastructural development for supporting tourism

(leisure and business)

Since the dawn of the Fourth Republic (1999 to the present), the Cross River
State Government has been developing a tourism economy with Calabar city,
which serves as the hub of this sector (Ingwe, 2013a,b). Recent state government
policy of developing a national and international tourism destination in Cross
River State focuses on expanding the tourism facilities and capabilities of the
city and environs. TINAPA –an elite tourism project advertised as Africa’s
premier business and leisure (Africa’s warmest welcome) is a multibillion
NG=N= resort located in Odukpani Local Government Area north of Calabar

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city. Moreover, since its commissioning in April 2007, conference facilities in

Tinapa (hotel, halls, etc.) have hosting of several aspects Calabar Christmas
Carnival (an annual festival that for nearly a decade, since 2000) has become a
regular socio-cultural assembly of tourists and business people from around the
world to what is described as “world largest street party” in Calabar city. This
has become a regular host of (inter)national socioeconomic and political events
such as retreats for Nigeria’s over-paid politicians, sports people and musical
entertainments. Apart from the Cultural Centre, among other recreational areas,
Calabar city hosts Cross River State’s three most important tourist sites
advertised by government: Marina Resort (a beach-head recreational area) and
TINAPA (State Planning Commission of the Cross River State Government,
2009: 21; Esia, and Ayara, 2012). It was reputed to have attracted several
thousands of participants in 2007. Cross River State’s Governor, “Imoke kicks
off (the 2012 version of the) “Carnival Calabar Dry Run” (Tribune, 2012).
Calabar city is accessible through Margaret Ekpo airport recently complemented
with a smaller airport (Bebi airstrip) located in the sub-national region;s in the
hinterland for linking air travelers (tourists and business people) to the towns
and tourism sites in northern and central parts of the state.

Akpabuyo, another Local Government Area which shares borders with Calabar
city has been experiencing vigorous urbanization due to the increasing tourism
and increase in the visibility of Calabar and Cross River State’s tourism
activities. The tourism development policy focused on expenditure of public
resources to improve urban environmental sanitation and security above the
levels of rival 35 states and Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria has successfully
in attracting large populations from outside the city, region and country to
Calabar and the state (Cross River State Government, 2009). Calabar stadium
comprising a football arena with carrying capacity of about 40,000 located
within the city, the urban region has been hosting (inter)national regional and
local sports tourism events . Some of the notable events hosted the 1999 Junior
World (Football) Cup, 2009 Junior World Football Cup in October (November),
among others too numerous for listing here.

Social and economic infrastructure and environmental conditions

Calabar seaport remains one of Nigeria’s most important transportation

facilities. The city was easily chosen for developing Nigeria’s premier export
processing in the early 1990s later upgraded to free trade zone (Cross River State
Government, 2009: 9). The urban region is regarded as a strategic location for
linking Nigeria’s eastern coast with the rest of the interior regions in the eastern
and northern parts of the country. The Margaret Ekpo international airport

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Calabar is linked to a smaller airport-strip in Bebi, within Calabar city’s

environs, to enable tourists to rapidly access the Obudu (Cattle) Ranch Resort –
a temperate-type climate resort located at a plateau at an altitude higher than the
surrounding region and equipped with electronically operated cable cars for
transporting tourists thereby avoiding frightening road travel through numerous
meanders including the notorious “devil elbow” (Cross River State Government,
2009).

The earlier introductory background belongs to theoretical perspectives of

regional development that have previously been undertaken in the sub-field. A
brief examination of the overview of the theoretical perspectives is apposite here
as a means of strengthening this introduction. The literature in regional
development has raised to high visibility certain concepts and theories as well as
their ambiguities. Paramount among such concepts is the region: is it (the
region) to be viewed as a sub-national entity or an entity that transcends one
country/nation as in the case of the European Union (EU) to which advancement
in the formulation of policies and strategies described as “regionalism” has been
most popularly and nearly unanimously credited (Szajnowska-Wysocka, 2009:
1; Scott and Marshall, 2003) or is it referenced to other different ideas? This
scalar component creates the greatest ambiguity in the concept (region).
Regarding the theoretical perspectives, we prefer to consider those in the league
of the classics. Two major strands of these classical theories of regional
development include: those addressing regional development –at a general level;
and those particularly concerned with endogenous regional development. Alicja
Szajnowska-Wysocka’s review elucidates on the multiplicity of the classical
theories of regional development as well describes their areas of emphases. They
include: globalization, economic base, new export-based trade, basic product,
growth poles, core-periphery, regional innovation networks, regional (local)
innovation networks, production cycle, flexible production, and industry
clusters. Others include theories/models elaborating: path dependence, cultural
pluralism, actors in the net, and self-organising space (Szajnowska-Wysocka,
2009). The existing elaboration of the afore-mentioned theoretical perspectives
makes repetitions of same unnecessary here. What presents greater relevance in
the scholarship focusing on regional economic development generally and
foreign investment in manufacturing is the urgency of relating the increasing
commitment of investors of varying economic/industrial sectors, geographical
origin within the advanced economies/nations, among other categories; to the
existing theoretical perspectives as well as representing the intellectual
dimensions of the increasing investment in the Calabar urban region.

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Theoretical perspectives for understanding the spurt in manufacturing

investment in Calabar

The core-periphery model

Alicja Szajnowska-Wysocka’s review highlights this theoretical strand. Viewed

as one of the most popular of the regional development theoretical perspectives,
this theory/model whose emergence in the regional development literature
coincided with the rise to prominence of theories of polarized development e.g.
growth pole(s), presents the core as the centre and possessor of capital and
located in the metropolitan regions of Western capitalist hegemons or
economically advanced nations. While the peripheries are areas drained by the
core regions thereby find themselves with inadequate capital and by extension
become vulnerable to increasing exploitation by the former who valorize their
capital by moving same to the latter for exploitative business transactions
including manufacturing. In terms of technological, economic (capital), services,
political and cultural characteristics, dogmas were fabricated by the metropolitan
capitalists purposefully for subordinating the peripheries for their profiteering
thereby maintaining the unbalanced and unequal hierarchical relationship that
facilitates exploitation of the latter by the former. This theory distinguishes itself
from those of polarized development by its emphases on economic
categorization of the areas under discussion. It has been suggested that while
core-periphery theorists concentrated on global-scale disproportions in
development within less developed or so called developing countries; polarized
development theorists focused on disparities in levels of development within the
core regions or economically advanced countries (Dutkowski, 1994; Rykiel,
1997; Szul, 1988).

Geographical relativity of the core-periphery concept

Regional development scholars draw attention to this sub-heading following the

exposition of the dynamics involved in the emergence of areas that take on
characteristics and functions of centralization contrasted to those in the
peripheral position (Szajnowska-Wysocka, 1999a, 2005). The domination of the
peripheries by the core was explained by John Friedmann and W. Alonso who
suggested that disproportions in development arise from (or are determined by)
flows of innovation of technological and cultural dimensions as controlled by the
core. They contended that the core (central) regions combine strength in
influencing and possession of potentials for experiencing change with
competitive enterprises capable of producing innovative products and services
(Friedmann and Alonso, 1964).

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Believers in the foregoing thesis by Friedmann (and Alonso) are perpetuating the
argument founded on contentions that the emergence of new centres/core areas
is a dynamic process determined by flows of innovation (technological trends)
and opening of industrial branches. This represents a dialectical relationship
between core and peripheral areas whereby over time there occurs reversals in
the statuses or positions of which area takes the position of the core or periphery
depending on the dynamic flows of innovation (technology and culture or branch
plants establishment) such that areas that either fail or slow down their
innovativeness are overtaken by those who are actively engaging in the practice.
Put differently, this includes downgrading of a former core region to a peripheral
one and vice versa. Silesia, a former centre of national economic activity due to
its commanding position in heavy industrial manufacturing in Fordist Poland is
cited as a region that was experiencing decline due to the structural dysfunctions
observed there thus descending towards peripheralisation (Szajnowska-
Wysocka, 1999a, 2005).

The experience or creation of favourable conditions facilitates upward

transformation of a region that was formerly known and described as peripheral
into a central/core status. This transformation is frequently transitional and
follows from its initial position as “periphery” through “borderland” to “core”,
however, only taking longer than desired over the human perception of time in
regions that are currently described as developing world. K. Heffner argues that
this dynamism and transitional character of the economic development process
proves wrong allusions to the permanence and unchanging nature of regions that
are currently and previously in the periphery because they have opportunities to
change under the right or favourable conditions/factors (Heffner and Marsz,
2005; Heffner, 2003).

Core-periphery theory’s suitability

At this time that is characterized by phenomenal globalization, the core-

periphery theoretical perspective assumes a very important status for
understanding the role of foreign direct investment in promoting sub-national
regional development in a developing country such as Nigeria. The current
status of the theory makes it promising for sub-national regional development
strategizing since it encourages ‘depressed parts of a country (sub-national
regions) to aspire towards applying innovative policies and instruments to
reverse their circumstances thereby surpassing the standards of counterparts that
placed higher on the development ladder.

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Foreign direct investment and sub-national regional development in

developing countries

The relationship between FDI and development (i.e. whether it contributes

towards economic growth or stifles or impedes it) in developing countries has
been a contested subject. While some believe that FDI contributes towards
economic growth of destination countries, others argue that it either drains host
countries’ environmental/natural resources and/or impedes the development of
human capital including the opportunities of the latter to achieve its full
potentialities in entrepreneurship such as creating competitive businesses similar
to those that usually move out of their original capitalist nations outwards to
developing countries. However, the era of neoliberalism or what has been
described as neoliberal counter revolution -corresponding to the past three to
four decades and counting- governments of developing countries have become
more favourably disposed towards attracting FDI as a way of enhancing their
local-national economic development. (Sub)national regional governments in
most developing countries have increasingly sought to attract FDIs hoping that
they will enhance their local-national technological and capital sectors by
liberalizing local policies and applying various measures including guarantee
funds, matchmaking, among others. Within the past one decade and half, it has
been reported that developing countries’ governments have become
discriminatory about FDIs: favouring those specializing in high-value added
manufacturing activities credited with transforming production structures of
local-regional situations, over those engaged in activities of other moulds.
Specific examples have been cited regarding the variation in outcomes for the
two kinds of FDIs in specific countries or regions. In this regard, a reflection of
the description of the terrible culture of Petro-capitalism, Nigeria is cited as one
of the developing (oil-rich) countries where from the 1970s to 1990s, domestic
capabilities in import substitution industrialization strategy was scuttled by
indiscriminate receipt of FDIs that sought the huge market (te Velde, 2006: 2)
spurned by rapid population growth.

Conclusion

The core-periphery theory has been used for elucidating on the challenges of
sub-national regional development strategizing in Cross River State, one of
Nigeria’s 36 states –statutorily endowed with political sovereignty equivalent to
that of the country’s federal government in terms of planning and managing its
own development programmes and projects. Further research to increase
understanding of this subject shall proceed based on the need for empirically
assessing the level of performance of the Cross River State Government in

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attracting FDI (size) –and comparison of the foregoing with other counterpart
Nigerian states. Findings on the latter study –nearly completed by this author -
shall be published shortly (Ingwe, 2014b). Similarly, an analysis of the
associated political and geographic dynamics related to the extent to which the
application of FDI for development bodes with principles of equilibrium –or
otherwise- in balancing development levels among autonomous regions has also
been completed and shall also be published shortly (Ingwe, 2014c).
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledges the Centre for Research and Action on Developing Locales,
Regions and the Environment (CRADLE) for funding the research programme on sustainable
(sub)national regional development from which this article was prepared. Thanks are due to two
anonymous reviewers whose useful suggestions led to improvement of the original manuscript.

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